A recent development in the harvesting of seed cotton has been to incorporate a module former and module wrapping apparatus in the seed cotton boll harvesting machine, with the module former and module wrapping apparatus forming cotton collected from the bolls into a large cylindrical module or bale and wrapping the module with a sheet of plastic wrapping material, for example, before the cotton module is ejected onto the ground. These modules are grouped or staged in the field, generally in end-to-end relationship to each other and in a number (usually four or more) equal to that required for loading a given transport truck or trailer used to transport the modules to the cotton gin. U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,650, granted 24 July 24, discloses a cotton harvester equipped with such a module former and module wrapping apparatus.
Once at the gin, it is necessary to remove the wrapping material from the module. A low cost means for removing the plastic wrapping material from the module is desired as part of processing the module on the feeder floor of the gin. While large gins may opt for a somewhat expensive automated means for removing the plastic wrap from the modules, in the case of smaller gins, there is a need for a lower cost means. While the plastic wrap may be slit manually using a utility knife mounted to a long wooden pole, cutting the wrap across the entire length of the module is cumbersome and requires positioning on both sides of the module to fully cut the wrap.
Accordingly, the problem to be solved is to maximize the operation of wrap removal together with handling the wrapped module using a loader attachment, and to have at least the step of slitting the plastic wrap located on the module to be controlled by the operator while seated in the loader.